Today is the LAST DAY for getting a free character magnet included with your online store order*! Just thrown right in there. You can’t choose your magnet — it’ll be random — but, hey, free character magnet! Buy a book? Free magnet! Buy a buttload of books? Free magnet! Buy magnets? STILL A FREE ADDITIONAL MAGNET.

So, yay!

*does not include buying the links to Joyce and Walky! comics, because i can’t throw a magnet into an email

If your motorcycle isn’t below your neck, you’re either a stuntman or having an accident (or both). Or maybe it’s just standing in the ground-level garage while you’re in the basement doing non-motorcycle-related stuff. Or you’re lying under the motorcycle (but on the same floor), fixing it or something, I dunno.

If you ever are in Wien, go to Demel and have a Sacher tarte, then you will understand why the cake don’t need to be three stories, but will feel like it is three stories, and you also wanted it to BE three stories hogh, because then you could eat it forever and never stop.

Well ultimately what was the final straw for her was his belief that she might give up her dream and stay for him which he only said when she finally talked to him. She wasn’t actively against their relationship until that point so much as unsure as to how to proceed because he wasn’t listening.

I don’t think they’ll be together here, because they’re closer to Dorothy than each other (and thus probably wouldn’t pursue one another while she were around), and because we already had them in one of the best webcomics of all time, but I still want them to happen regardless, plus they’re different enough characters here that I don’t think it’d be a retread.

Except that Hillary doesn’t have a history of corruption, has a history of being slandered by republicans accusing her of corruption as often as they possibly can, and being found innocent of it over and over and over again.

Basic Big Lie strategy: It doesn’t matter whether there’s even a tenuous connection to reality. If you keep repeating the lie loudly enough, often enough, and long enough, people will come to believe it. And it’s a lot easier to lie than it is to debunk a lie.

And the Republicans have been spearheading an organized effort to character-assassinate the Clintons since Bill was running against Daddy Bush.

Back in October, I was arguing with a guy about the upcoming election, and while he was not a Trump supporter, he was all, “Well, Hillary’s not any better,” and parroting all the Republican party line about omg emails and Clinton Foundation and Benghazi oh my. Somewhere in the middle of it, I came to the realization that… he’s 24. He was born the year Bill was elected the first time. (I voted in that election.) He has been hearing the Republican propaganda machine’s Big Lie about Hillary Clinton for literally his entire life. It had become just part of his world – the sky is blue, the Earth is round, Hillary Clinton is corrupt. And there was nothing I could say that could outweigh decades of that constant barrage of lies.

Sorry to reply to myself, but a couple of comments are at the end of tree branches above and can’t be replied to.

On the matter of “I’m not a Trump supporter” now supposedly being some sort of smokescreen… does one have to be vocally pro-Clinton to pass some sort of “really not a Trump voter” test? I didn’t want to vote for Clinton, but I couldn’t vote for Trump or help him win, so I voted for her instead, and then went home and had a very large very strong drink. In an ideal world it would be a pox on both their houses, they both support policies I find repugnant and both have histories that should disqualify them from elected or public office.

On “The Big Lie”, I’m old enough that I was voting before Bill Clinton ran for office. I was there for the whole thing, and from the start Bill came across as a smarmy glad-handing pandering SOB. I didn’t need anyone’s campaign spin to tell me that I didn’t care for him. More than a few of his policies were just bad, such as buddying up to China and giving them a free pass on industrial and economic espionage, slated trade practices, etc. Warren Christopher should go down as one of the worst Sec of State ever.

Your own assessment of the facts is in direct contravention of the fact that the Republicans have done *NOTHING*, after repeated investigations into both clintons. They wanted her head. If she were particularly corrupt, they’d have gotten it, unless she is a criminal mastermind of the highest order.

I’m assuming you disagree because you’ve been duped. Like, do you know what /corruption actually is/?

This is factually wrong. See, Hillary has been investigated over and over and over and over… again. She has been investigated so often and so thoroughly, that if she were actually corrupt,someone would have dug up evidence by now, and she’d be in jail. Especially when you keep in mind that the people investigating her, wanted her destroyed, they wanted her taken down. She wasn’t investigated by friends, or people she supposedly bought, she was investigated by the likes of Comey, people who despised her.

And not a single one could find enough evidence to get her actually indicted or convicted of anything.

At this point there are two possible conclusions, either she’s the greatest criminal mastermind of all time, or she’s one of the LEAST corrupt politicians in Washington. And considering that Politifacts proved, that she is one of the MOST HONEST politicians in Washington, in fact her record shows she says less untruths than Bernie Sanders, I’m inclined to go with assuming that she’s pretty much extremely trusthworthy. But as a woman, just the assumption that she must have done something wrong, is stronger, than the proven fact that Donald Trump is a proven pathological liar and con man.

So the intense suppression of opposition candidates and voters, the rigging of the supreme court, the mass arrests of protestors, the seizure of domesticlt-owned assets conducted against those who dared to speak out against their policies, and so on, and so on, and so on… that doesn’t qualify Chavez or his successor as autocrats, or call into question the legitimacy of the elections that they “won”?

Never mind their ruinous “management” of the economy… or is the collapse of their economy going to be conveniently blamed on “foreign powers”?

Yeah, given that white people have been delegitimizing Chavez from the start, and that I’m not seeing a peep of this, I’m going to go with ‘meriken fabrication’. Especially given that their SC ruled pretty definitively in favor of the opposition in the last election in terms of anti-voter suppression.

But yes, equally, given that the USA, one of the larger markets in the world, tries to play hard ball, and that Venezuela is actively hostile to major global corporate interests… ‘foreign powers’ is not exactly a trivial problem for them.

The only thing “outed” here was another example of “World Left” blame-shifting and naivete.

Developing-world thug dictator and his hand-picked successor trash their country’s democracy and economy, and of course it’s the fault of “white people” and “corporate villains”.

Smug, cold, candidate runs a mechanical, myopic, formulaic campaign (Clinton, in case it needs to be said), and loses against a vile clown of an opponent… but instead of looking at the deeper issues or asking themselves how the Clinton campaign failed, it’s easier to blame “racism” and fall back on failed notions of “identity” and “class” and make snide, derisive comments towards the people you assume didn’t vote for your candidate.

Since links fall into moderation limbo, I suggest you look up the Politico article on who Clinton failed in Michigan, and take a long hard look at what went on inside the campaign.

Sweety, when the eyes of the world are on you, the SC rules /against/ you repeatedly, and you win by a margin /larger/ than previous elections, with those same organizations finding nothing untoward about your election, it doesn’t say what you think it does.

Frankly, given that America destroyed its own democratic underpinnings, and you’re not yelling about voter suppression here, when we *KNOW* it happened, it looks insincere. White People never care about their own shit. It’s always about others. Millions of black people factually did not get to vote. We had the VRA gutted, those black people were denied at the polls, and you’re acting like it’s a fault of the campaign that the segment of the population she stumped for hardest could do more. She lost Florida within the margin of error – it’s almost impossible Voter Suppression didn’t damage her campaign irreperably, and in NC, the governor was PROUD of having kept black people from voting.

And yet, you’re hyperfocused on Venezuela. OK, honkie. I’m sure there’s nothing racist or nationalist here. It’s not like white people in the states have a history of looking outwards to avoid introspection or anything. We didn’t justify wars that way a decade ago, or 4 decades ago, or anything like that.

I mean, Michigan happened. Clinton thought it was her firewall. She thought the same of PA. But so did Florida and NC. Also, I generally wouldn’t go with a bunch of people voting for literal nazis as proof there isn’t massive racism on the part of the voting public.

Nah, they’re full-sentence quotes. It’d have to be, “Because You Are A Perfect Autumn Blossom Who Is For Some Reason Attracted To An Annoying Human-Shaped Pile Of Sarcasm And McNuggets”, which is possibly a little long even for a DoA book title.

Dunno, the first english dictionary had the title “A table alphabeticall conteyning and teaching the true writing, and vnderstanding of hard vsuall English wordes, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine, or French, &c. With the interpretation thereof by plaine English words, gathered for the benefit & helpe of ladies, gentlewomen, or any other vnskilfull persons. Whereby they may the more easilie and better vnderstand many hard English wordes, vvhich they shall heare or read in scriptures, sermons, or elswhere, and also be made able to vse the same aptly themselues”

Didn’t she once use her reaction to underwear-clad Rachel, and sexy-dressed Mandy and Grace as evidence she was going to end up gay like everyone else in college?

Joyce, if that’s the case, you might not want to blatantly drool over half the girls in your dorm. Dorothy, Sal, Billie, Rachel, Mandy, Grace, who next? My money says Agatha. For no real reason than because Agatha is a precious ray of sunshine.

You’re welcome to see it however you see it. Personally, her staring at Billie’s boobs and then checking out Rachel, Grace, and Mandy in rapid succession makes her seem like she’s either bi-romantic or ‘so deep in the closet, she may discover Narnia’ bisexual to me.

That’s definitely part of it, but some of the things she says are very…trying to think of a polite way to say ‘borderline creepy and fetishizing’ but turns out there ain’t one, so let’s go with that, to me and I’ve seen other commenters notice it too. Definitely not maliciously, but, well, stepping on someone’s foot doesn’t only hurt when it’s on purpose.

I perceive instances like that more as “sheltered girl who has never experienced anything” than closeted bisexual/bi-romantic. She has a bit of culture shock as she is subjected to situations that she has had no experience to prepare herself for. I think she looked more because her religion doesn’t say she can’t and she’s never really had the opportunity before because everyone she knew before had as much modesty as she does. She is expanding her horizons and there is bound to be quite a bit of awkwardness in that.

That said, Joyce’s religion DOES say she can’t look at girls. That would be ‘lesbian activity’ and therefore a no-no. She also explicitly used it as fuel for her fear she was ‘ending up gay like everyone else at college’, but again, that’s my reading.

Joyce didn’t see it as ‘innocently hanging out with other girls though’. She was panicking over checking out her dorm mates. So even by the model Becky demonstrated for female friendship, she was going beyond it by her own recognition.

Exactly. I can see Joyce being bi-romantic easier than bisexual for a couple reasons, but this is the main one – while she’s expressed some serious SERIOUS could-be-romantic-attraction for multiple girls, she’s only ever expressed sexual attraction to boys. While that could be compulsory heterosexuality, I’m inclined to believe Joyce when she says her attraction to Ethan was different than the feelings she’d be worrying about all day. I also have no doubt she’s never heard of crossed orientations, so she might not recognize her attraction to other girls as romantic. And you CAN check people out for romantic reasons (i.e. ‘oh my gosh, they’re super cute aesthetically, I wonder what they’d be like to date’), which would cover her checking out her floor mates. She also mentioned wanting to cuddle up to Billie(‘s breasts specifically), but no desire to bang her.

It’s a hard line to explain. Here is what is probably a gross oversimplification and others please feel free to chime in:

Friendship – Platonic feelings, no desire to date or to bang.

Romantic – A desire to date, have a romantic relationship and all the things therein entailed, minus any desire to bang.

Sexual – A desire to bang.

A lot of relationships involve romantic AND sexual desire, to the point where it’s hard to split the two up, but in a lot of cases (especially when one partner is ace or has crossed orientations) they may only have one or the other.

The only girl we’ve seen her kiss was Becky, and Becky was family to Joyce. I agree that we haven’t seen anything to indicate Joyce wants that kind of romantic affection from Dorothy, but I wouldn’t entirely rule out the possibility that she would react to Dotty differently than she reacted to Becky.

It is a word! From what I have gleaned looking at LGBT+ resources, it usually refers to people whom are experimenting with specifically bi sexuality or people who are curious and would like to experience it but may actually feel bi attraction.

Well, ‘experimenting’ here usually means ‘trying things out to see if they experience bisexual attraction’. Curious experiencing usually meant ‘hmmm, I wonder what (for example) sex with a girl would be like, I want to try it and see’, even if they aren’t actually into girls.

Mind, this definition is from a gay rights group I joined on Facebook like 7 years ago, so my information may be out of date and someone please tell me if it is.

Actually, biromancy refers to a form of magic of the pen. An object (or in this case, person) is said to be biromantic when it is in some way the product of (or imbued with the properties of) this magic.

Biromancy itself is a specific kind of magic mostly dealing with a sort of fate. The practitioner, or biromancer, weaves a spell, or text, which defines the entire existence of entities defined within the text by the biromancer, who writes their wyrd. Joyce is one such biromantic entity.

The magic operates due to the connections fate, magic and storytelling share, often via weaving, hinted at etymologically in the common metaphors used for weaving spells and stories, in the derivation of the word ‘spell’ from words meaning to speak or talk, the derivation of ‘wyrd’ from ‘to turn or spin’ and even in the (purely coincidental but significant for magic nonetheless) similarities held today by ‘word’ and ‘wyrd’. This connection is also seen in the association held between the Fates and spinning.

Since the occurrence of a singularity caused by prominent biromancer Roland Barthes in approximately 1967, biromancers have increasingly struggled to maintain control of their texts. This leads to secondary biromancy such as the practises of fanfiction and more . . . creative forms of criticism and interpretation.

My pet fan theory is that Joyce is definitely biromantic if not full-on homoromantic. And I’ve been waiting years for her to stop repressing it.
The trouble is, Joyce’s gimmick is “everything she does is something Willis did”, so he might not be comfortable with this emergent quality of her character. If Joyce comes out of the closet, the first thing on everybody’s mind is gonna be “I knew it“, and he would never hear the end of it.
Meanwhile, the true natures of characters like Ruth, Billie, Robin, Ethan, Ultra Car, Malaya, Jocelyne, and Dina all seem to keep coming to him naturally, over and over and over. Hmmmmmmmm!!….

I kid, but seriously I would cheer when it comes to be Joyce’s turn. Maybe some day…

I do believe Joyce is into boys – she’s clearly shown that over and over. And I believe her when she says she’s romantically attracted to them as well, and her Walkyverse incarnation shows that pretty well too. So I’m inclined towards biromantic.

Though that said, I can see where homoromantic looks likely and if that were to be the case, I’d believe it. Not everything is Willis’ own experiences, even with Joyce. For instance, he was the oldest sibling in his family and he’s a boy, not a girl. I also seriously hope he’s ever been chased with a gun or roofied at a party, and if those have happened, INFINITE appropriate gestures of support to him.

I was addressing the homoromantic part of the above post. But yeah, I’m definitely reading Joyce as possibly biromantic or bisexual. I find biromantic more likely, but that’s just me. Either way, yes, whatever kind of attraction to girls she has (be it platonic, romantic, sexual, or some combination) runs STRONG.

Joyce has been brought up to think about boys for marriage, with a distant chance for post-marital hanky-panky. She has seen this marriage as her sole choice in life throughout her upbringing.

Her newly expanded horizon doesn’t appear to affect these ambitions, even if her activities have been curbed by the Ryan-induced trauma. And even if she is ready to still her mother’s (presumed) thirst for grandchildren, until her wedding night she doesn’t consider any hanky panky without a deep religious crisis.

Okay, but that doesn’t work for Walkyverse Joyce and sexual/romantic/gender orientations are consistent across universes. I also do believe she was genuinely romantically attracted to Joe and Ethan – overblown due to her desire for marriage that was instilled since she was little, but genuinely interested.

Nah. I don’t buy Joyce’s biromanticism. The boobs thing was a bit of HOCD–she was worried she was attracted to women. It’s not uncommon for straight women to like boobs, but not in a sexual way.

If she were biromantic, I think she would not have turned Becky down. She was desperate to find out how she could help her at that point. If she could be “gay” for her, she would have.

And those types of close friendships just aren’t uncommon. And women are socially allowed to show a level of affection that men are not, and that men and women together would indicate they were together.

I’ve noticed, because I get jealous of women over that.

I think all this is just shipping. You want them to be romantically attracted to each other. In that one way, at least, you are like Walky.

By which I mean: She’s never shown anything even remotely resembling a desire for an actual romantic relationship. She’s gone through the motions of romance because she’s expected to – but her interest has been primarily of a physical sort. Dotty’s the only one she shows any sign of romantic affection for (even if it’s entirely unrequited) – which would fit with a lot of grey aros I know who need to have a deep friendship with someone before they even feel a hit of romantic attraction.

A) Biromantic =/= ‘attracted to every possible girl even if she knows they like her’ – Becky is not guaranteed even biromantic Joyce’s attraction.

B) ‘Not in a sexual way’ – Hence why I said BiROMANTIC not bisexual. And while I have never met a straight woman who liked boobs, non sexually or otherwise, I will take your word for it that you’ve met straight women who have.

D) I don’t ship Joyce with anybody. Surprise, people can have sexuality/romantic/gender orientation head canons that have nothing to do with shipping. That’s all this is – my own head canon. You don’t have to agree with it, I’m stating mine (and also discussing why I think so when people disagree because discussing why is fun).

E) Walky is mocking Joyce here – I don’t think he actually wants her to like Dorothy.

@ ischemgeek – I can see that, tbh. I can believe some of her earlier expressed desire for romantic relationships, because I see no reason to believe they aren’t genuine, but I can also see it as the result of her raising. Either way, neat idea!

I believe her when she says the feelings she has for girls are different than the ones she had for Ethan. I just believe those different feelings are romantic rather than platonic, while her feelings for the boys were sexual.

IIRC, she wanted to curl up in Billie’s boobs and be safe and warm. Not anything sexy, but definitely cuddly and more-than-friendly imo. Unless I drastically misunderstand what motor boating is, which is entirely possible. Or I could be thinking of a different strip.

@ thejeff – After which she almost immediately said ‘Oh if only’ when Mike asked if she’d be gay for Sal. And prior to which she’d checked out her dorm mates and mentioned a desire to nestle in Billie’s boobs.

It’s not wrong to take Joyce at her word that she’s 100% Kinsey Zero straight. Hell, sometimes I read her that way (though less and less often lately, as her biromantic game is strong, imo). However, that is not what trlkly said. He said if Joyce were biromantic, she’d automatically return Becky’s feelings. That is not true. Not liking Becky =/= not liking girls at all.

Depends what kind of poly. He might be okay with the ‘Dorothy is dating myself and Joyce at the same time, but Joyce and I are not dating’ kind. The ‘The three of us are dating each other’ kind might be a harder sell.

Even the team mom need some care and support. Dorothy has healthy coping strategies. Going to pout with a book and her Joyce instead of bottling up of flipping out is a good way to deal with disappointment.

Well, Dorothy, maybe you should care more about making friends and less about making network contacts. Your neighbors all like Roz, because she was connecting with them since the beginning of the year, long before the R.A. vacancy.

Those three are such a lovably dysfunctional trio. Dorothy drives people away, Joyce scares people away, and Walky acts like he doesn’t need anyone, but by some miracle they’ve all gotten so close.

I still don’t get why people think that. Roz has never been shown to connect with anyone. She’s a liberal firebrand, yelling and complaining about things. And she’s smarmy every single time she appears in the comic, so that seems to be her default personality.

It makes more sense that she started faking it when she learned that the R.A. position might be open.

I don’t say this to say she’s absolutely awful. She has her good points. But being warm and connecting with people was never one of them.

We don’t actually have enough textual evidence to say that. We’ve seen Roz yelling and complaining about things, but we’ve also, for the most part, only seen Roz in the Gender Studies class situation. Which is a class she feels she does not need and tries to take over constantly via yelling and complaining.

As proof for the Roz is good at connecting with people, we have Agatha and Freshman Rachel saying she is; bear in mind that Freshman Rachel says ‘every time I talk to Roz’ which means that she’s talked to Roz several times. We’ve seen Roz at a party, where her body language indicates that she was having a conversation with BEEF of all people before Dorothy came along and was more interesting becase LOL PAJAMAS. Third and finally, we’ve also seen that Roz gets along, to a certain extent, with her roommate Mary who is pure absolute awful and essentially Roz’s polar opposite beliefwise – said evidence being the most friendly exchange Mary’s had with anyone in the comic.

So that’s three textual instances of Roz being good at connecting with people, at least two of which occurred before the RA thing was a thing.

Only in the sense that they’re roommates and haven’t yet killed each other. Mary hates Riley because she’s related to Roz. If we’re thinking of the same “friendly exchange” it revolves around “why do you hate my whole family”.

Is the “God-hating Commie” a bit of sarcastic exaggerated humor on Joyce’s part? Because if it’s not is Dorothy a disciple of the Rosa Luxembourg school of Communism, the Trotskyite school of Leninist communism, Castro communism, Che Guevara-style communism, Sandinista thought, or good old fashioned Marxism straight from the Manifesto? Because Dorothy strikes me as a Luxembourgist. Just putting that out there.

Gah, stupid lack of proofreading. I meant ‘we know what colour Joyce’s eyes, Ruth’s eyes’ etc. are. Ethan’s, Dorothy’s, etc’s. eyes are drawn differently, as are dot eyes, so we can’t say. I used to assume they were brown, but word of Willis is Dorothy’s are grey.

Aw! Joyce is always so sweet and nice to her friends! She’s probably the single most genuinely nice person in the wing (and, given that I’m agreeing with Sarah to say that, I’m pretty sure that I’m right). She’s so sweet that she doesn’t even break her smile when she’s slapping down Walky!

Meanwhile, someone should tell Sarah that her “Joyce Brown Gives Me Diabetes” club now has a second member. I think that she’d willingly dissolve it when she realises that this is Walky!

Yeah. That I recall offhand, Asma, Raidah and her posse (though not Dana), Kaitlin (Becky’s roomie/first kiss), Sayid, and some of the parents are new non-Walkyverse characters. Riley originated in DoA and was backported to Shortpacked!. Carla is not technically the same character as Ultra Car…